duas notícias de interesse:
1) Trabalho estressante e
2) Estudo Canadense mostra papel de sindicatos em defesa da saúde de trabalhadores
New warning on deadly work stress ("trabalho estressante mata")
A Harvard Business School and Stanford University study has concluded that job insecurity, long working hours and other common workplace stressors can all damage a person's health, raise the odds of them having an illness and even lead to an early death. The research team analysed 228 studies investigating stress in the workplace. They found:
- High job demands increased the odds of having an illness diagnosed by a doctor by 35 per cent;
- Long work hours increased the chances of early death by almost 20 per cent; (jornadas excessivas aumentam chances de morte precoce0
- The biggest stressor identified was the worry of losing one's job: that increased the odds of having poor health by about 50 per cent. (o maior estressor identificado foi o medo de perder o emprego)
The team wrote: "Our results suggest that many workplace conditions profoundly affect human health. In fact, the effect of workplace stress is about as large as that of second-hand tobacco smoke, an exposure that has generated much policy attention and efforts to prevent or remediate its effects." Joel Goh, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, and the study's co-author, said: "When you think about how much time individuals typically spend at work, it's not that surprising." He said many companies now have 'wellness programmes' which include exercise and yoga classes at lunchtimes. However, the focus should not solely be on the employee's actions: companies should also think about the effects managers have on their staff, he added. "Wellness programmes are great at doing what they're designed to do," he said. "But they're targeting [employee behaviour], not targeting the cause of stress. There are two sides of the equation and right now we focus on one side. We're trying to call attention to the other side, which is the effect of managerial practices."
Read more: Joel Goh, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Stefanos A Zenios, Workplace stressors and health outcomes: Health policy for the workplace Behavioural Science and Policy, volume 1, number 1, September 2015. More on Stress and Fatigue Source: Risks 719
2) Canada: Study shows unions keep site workers safer
A new Canadian study has shown that unionised construction workers are significantly less likely than their non-unionised counterparts to be seriously injured on the job. The report examined Workplace Safety and Insurance Board claims data from more than 40,000 construction firms across Ontario. It found that workers with unionised firms reported 23 per cent fewer injuries that required time off than those at non-union shops. Unionised workers were also 17 per cent less likely to experience muscle, tendon, and nerve injuries that affect mobility. They were almost 30 per cent less likely to suffer critical injuries - defined as those that place workers' lives in jeopardy. "One of the things that I think our study shows is that one way to identify firms that are doing well is to identify unionised firms," said the report's lead investigator, Ben Amick, of the Institute for Work and Health. "That may not be the only way but I think we need to have a discussion about what's going right."
The research looked at injury claims between 2006 and 2012 for firms together employing more than 1.5 million full-time Ontario workers, in what is one of the most comprehensive studies in North America. While the report found that unionised workers were less likely to claim for serious injuries, they were more likely to file less serious incidents, which Amick says allows construction unions to better identify workplace dangers. IWH associate scientific director Dr Sheilah Hogg-Johnson, a co-author of the report, said: "The lower rates of lost-time claims might also suggest that unionised workplaces are safer. It could be they do a better job educating workers, in part through apprenticeship training. They may have more effective health and safety programmes and practices. They may give workers more voice to influence the health and safety of their work environments, and to report not only injuries, but also near-misses."
The study was funded by the Ontario Construction Secretariat, which represents 25 building trade unions, together with representatives of government and contractors. "There's a general kind of understanding that the unionised construction industry is safer than the alternative," said the organisation's head, Sean Strickland. "I think it's important to have this kind of study to actually prove that this is indeed the case."
Read more: Benjamin C Amick, Sheilah Hogg-Johnson, Desiree Latour-Villamil and Ron Saunders. Protecting construction worker health and safety in Ontario Canada: Identifying a union safety effect, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, published online ahead of print, September 2015. doi 10.1097/JOM.0000000000000562 [full paper].
IWH news release. OCS union safety effect infographic. FIU news release. Source: Risks 719
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